American Academy of Microbiology

Education Resources

Welcome to ASM's Resource Library!

This is the new home for ASM's Image Gallery, Laboratory Protocols, Curriculum Archive, and Visual Media Briefs, which were previously available at MicrobeLibrary.org. All collections feature free, original, open-access content submitted and peer-reviewed by members of the microbiology educator community. The mission of the Resource Library is to promote good pedagogy in microbiology, foster scholarly teaching, and enhance understanding about the microbial world.

Click the bold links below to navigate to each of the collections, and be sure to read the information about permitted reuse and citations if you plan to use these resources in your classroom. The Resource Library is not accepting new submissions at this time, but stay tuned for additional information.

Laboratory Protocols

Laboratory Protocols (2005-2015) are information briefs about standard laboratory
tests and include the procedural steps as well as the purpose, theory,
history, safety considerations, tips and comments, and references.

Image Gallery

The Image Gallery (2006-2015) is a collection of images, videos, and animations that can
be used to enhance lecture or lab presentations. Individual items
include brief legends that describe the items and how they were
obtained. A collection of items around a central theme (e.g., Gram stain
and MacConkey agar) includes a title for the collection and a title and
short description for each item (e.g., figure title and legend).

Visual Media Briefs

Visual Media Briefs (2007-2014) consist of high-quality, short communications with
digital images, animations, and videos about the microbial world. Briefs
include introduction, methods, discussion, and reference sections.
Briefs describe the item and how it was obtained (e.g., cultured and
isolated), its significance and/or use, magnification, and references.
Visual Media Briefs are similar to short research communications (or
briefs) in scientific journals.

Permission for Classroom Instruction/Non-Commercial Use

The American Society for Microbiology grants the public nonexclusive rights to copy, distribute, adapt or display under a Creative Commons Attribution – Noncommercial – NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). This license permits end users to use and reproduce, but not modify, images from the Image Gallery, Visual Media Brief collection, Laboratory Protocols, or Curriculum Archive in classroom instruction and other non-commercial uses. If you wish to alter, crop, modify or adapt images, you must fill out and sign our license agreement form. Please address any questions to education@asmusa.org.

Permission for Commercial Reuse

Commercial reuse of Image Gallery, Visual Media Brief, Laboratory Protocol, or Curriculum Archive resources is granted on an individual basis. To receive permission to reuse resources, you must first complete the license agreement form. An ASM representative will then contact you to approve the usage and provide payment instructions. License agreements are available for a maximum of 2 years for use in online resources and 3 years for print resources. If you do not accept the terms as outlined above, please do not use resources from ASM's Resource Library. Improper use of materials could result in legal action. Please address any questions to education@asmusa.org.

Citing Resource Library Content

The following format is used to cite Resource Library content:

Author’s last name, first name and co-authors’ first initial, last name. Publication date. Title of work. Collection Name. Publisher, City, State. URL. Date of access.